The Moths

When we couldn't heal my father, we looked for something else to fix | My parents' house had an infestation. It started as soon as the sun set: a slight fluttering around the edges that intensified until the air in the living room vibrated.

- Morgan Charles

"These goddamn things!" my father yelled as he swatted at the moths from his recliner. They created a pixelated blur on the television screen and strobed the reading lamp behind his head. I clapped them between my hands and they disappeared into powdery dust, like a magic trick. But it didn't matter. They kept coming.

It was November 2015, and my pregnancy was just starting to show by then, so I was making the trip from Toronto to Ottawa, where my parents lived, less often than I had been. When my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer two years before, the doctors gave him anywhere from six to nine months. Since then, he'd undergone radiation for his lungs and brain, as well as chemotherapy, all in an attempt to extend his prognosis. I tried to visit him at least once a month, but it was trickier now that I had so many of my own appointments to keep track of. The doctors had told him he couldn't drive anymore because of the brain metastases, so when I was home, I chauffeured him to his appointments. Mostly, though, we spent all of our time in the house.

Like the rest of us, the moths were drawn to the living room, with the massive TV acting like a beacon. My father used it for company the way some people use the radio. Since his diagnosis, he'd become indiscriminate in his tastes: reality shows about storage lockers or truckers had replaced dramas, even comedies, which could unpredictably introduce some fatal illness. If a show contained any reference to cancer, we'd squirm until another reason gave us cover to change the channel.